The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed a trial court’s decision to exclude certain evidence obtained from a blood sample drawn from the defendant, Angela Faye Daniel. In this case, Daniel was arrested for driving under the influence, and she was transported to a medical facility for a blood draw. Although the arresting officer obtained a search warrant for the blood draw, the officer failed to leave a copy of the warrant with Daniel. The trial court suppressed the evidence obtained from the blood draw on this basis. On interlocutory appeal by the state, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s suppression of the evidence, as so the state appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In its unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Jeff Bivins, the court held that a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied in this case, given that any failure of the arresting officer to provide Daniel with a copy of the warrant was due to an inadvertent oversight and that the technical noncompliance did not prejudice her.

In an appeal from Shelby County Criminal Court, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s request for a new trial more than 20 years after his original conviction for aggravated rape. In 2016, prisoner Tommy Nunley filed a coram nobis petition, claiming there was new information to prove he was not guilty of the rape he was convicted of in 1998. The Supreme Court held that trial courts may summarily dismiss coram nobis petitions that do not show sufficient facts on their face, without discovery or an evidentiary hearing. Justice Holly Kirby authored the unanimous opinion.

In a unanimous opinion, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled that when a party to a divorce case violates a statutory injunction and then dies while the case is pending, a trial court may, after considering the equities of the parties, remedy the violation of the injunction. Read Rose Coleman v. Bryan Olson.